Here at Take Back the Sky, we’ve made no attempt to disguise the fact that we support and advocate independent spaceflight by private individuals – I think that gets called a “bias” these days. It has never had anything to do with politics. We just feel that pursuing a future like the kind depicted in Firefly and Serenity where any ordinary Joe can fly wherever they want in a ship of their own is worthy and noble.

The media likes to make a great deal of noise and bluster about recent advances in spaceflight and tries to get mileage out of it by depicting it as a David-and-Goliath battle between large companies set in their ways and smaller, scrappy upstarts driven by ideals. It’s a portrayal that is not without merit, for sure – a valid argument could be made that our progress out in the black has stagnated in large part due to complacency in the industry and its relationship with government as a contractor.

So, it’s no surprise that, when a company like SpaceX shakes things up and challenges others to adapt, it makes headlines. I mean, for the love of Shepherd Book, they’ve actually made space cool again. People by and large have been starving for something new, for things to pick back up again, and it’s only natural that SpaceX and other “New Space” companies garner attention for their impressive achievements.

It’s occurred to me recently, though, that in our excitement and newfound optimism for the future, it becomes very, very easy to dismiss or even disparage the accomplishments that still continue to be made by NASA and “legacy” companies, such as the Orion spacecraft – and that’s not because I started working for Lockheed-Martin. Speaking of which –Continue Reading

For the past seven years we here at Take Back the Sky have been focusing our efforts to get a real-life manned spaceship named Serenity on SpaceX and its founder and CEO, Elon Musk. If you want to understand why we chose SpaceX and not Virgin Galactic, Boeing, Blue Origin, Sierra Nevada, or any other private company that’s in the business of building and launching spaceships, you need look no further than the upcoming Starlink-1 mission. While SpaceX has been in the business of making history (and making spaceflight sexy again) for some time now, this latest mission has several features that just exude the daring, independent spirit that we Browncoats value so highly.

Starlink-1 Mission Patch (courtesy SpaceX Now)

First of all, the mission’s very purpose is something any Browncoat would admire. With Starlink, SpaceX hopes to establish a mega-constellation of 12,000 satellites that will provide high-speed internet across the entire planet. The endeavor will cost Elon Musk and company roughly $10 billion, and it is expected to take approximately 10 years. When it’s finished, however, anyone will be able to have high-speed internet access anywhere on the globe, and the best connections will no longer be reserved for those who are in the most populated areas or have the finances to afford the equipment necessary to establish a good connection out on the raggedy edge. SpaceX plans to have half the constellation in orbit by 2024, with the full constellation out in the black by 2028.

The Starlink-1 launch, which is planned NET 10:30PM EDT on May 15 (02:30 GMT May 16) from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, will be the sixth SpaceX launch of 2019 and the fifth for a Falcon 9. It will also be the 70th Falcon 9 launch since 2010. Its payload will be no less than 60 satellites that will be inserted into Low Earth Orbit. SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell has stated publicly that this first batch of 60 satellites will drive the schedule for the next set of spacecraft to be launched, depending on how successful they are.

There’s more to the Browncoat nature of this mission than its everyman payload, however. The logistics of the mission also reflect the attitude of a company that aims to misbehave. Not only will the mission utilize a previously-flown Falcon 9 first stage, but for the first time, the satellites will also be launched within a previously-flown payload fairing. The Falcon 9 first stage being used is core B1049, which was previously utilized for the Iridium-8 mission in January 2019 as well as the Telstar 18V mission in September 2018. (It will be recovered yet again aboard SpaceX’s Atlantic droneship Of Course I Still Love You during this mission.) The payload fairing for the mission is expected to be the one that SpaceX successfully recovered from the Atlantic Ocean following the most recent Falcon Heavy mission.

SpaceX planned to launch its 17th resupply mission to the International Space Station from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in the early morning hours of Wednesday, May 1, but now the launch will have to wait until NET Friday, May 3 so that NASA can troubleshoot a problem with an electrical distribution unit on the International Space Station.

When the mission does finally break atmo, a previously unflown Block 5 Falcon 9 will insert Dragon into Low Earth Orbit, where it will rendezvous with the ISS and deliver over 5,500 pounds of supplies, experiments and equipment to the astronauts of Expedition 59 aboard the space station.

The logistics of this particular mission certainly have been fluid. The first stage of the booster was originally scheduled to land at Landing Zone 1 (LZ-1) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, but the Falcon 9 will now land at sea aboard the SpaceX drone ship Of Course I Still Love You due to the ongoing investigation at LZ-1 into the anomaly that occurred there during a Crew Dragon abort system test on April 20. During that incident, which occurred as SpaceX was testing the Crew Dragon’s eight SuperDraco abort engines, the capsule that made Crew Dragon’s first demonstration flight (DM-1) to the ISS on March 2 of this year was lost.

But in the meantime, the OG Dragon is now scheduled to lift off NET 3:11 AM EST (7:11 GMT) on May 3. The current forecast shows the weather as being 60% go for launch. For those night owls who want to watch it live, SpaceX’s webcast of the CRS-17 launch should go live approximately 20 minutes before liftoff at spacex.com and on the company’s YouTube channel.

When Falcon Heavy made its debut launch back in February of 2018, it was primarily what the US Navy would have called a “shakedown cruise.” The mission for the launch was just to prove that SpaceX had a powerful horse that could really run, and the rocket passed the test in style, sending Elon Musk’s own Tesla Roadster into the black with a dummy nicknamed “Starman” at the wheel and executing a perfectly synchronized dual booster landing that could only be described as unforgettable.

But this week Falcon Heavy really goes to work, with a launch from Space Launch Complex 39A (SLC-39A) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida that will send the Arabsat-6A satellite into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit (GTO). The Arabsat-6A is a Saudi Arabian communications satellite built by Lockheed Martin. It is designed to provide television, internet and phone services to the Middle East, Africa and Europe.

According to SpaceX: “Falcon Heavy’s 27 Merlin engines generate more than 5 million pounds of thrust at liftoff, making it the world’s most powerful operational rocket by a factor of two.” In the background is the Falcon 9 booster that launched Crew Dragon to the ISS in March. (Photo and data courtesy SpaceX via Twitter)

Apparently SpaceX also has a triple landing planned for this mission, with boosters landing at both LZ-1 and LZ-2 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station as well as on SpaceX’s Atlantic droneship Of Course I Still Love You.

Liftoff is scheduled for NET Tuesday, April 9 at 6:36 p.m. EDT (22:36 GMT). Those who want to see the massive rocket break atmo (and watch as SpaceX turns a booster landing triple play) can tune in to SpaceX’s live webcast at spacex.com or the company’s YouTube channel. Coverage will begin approximately 20 minutes before launch.

After years of iterating designs on the drawing board, hard work on the factory floor, and combating the naysayers and haters, the Crew Dragon, the first private orbital spacecraft (Virgin Galactic’s bird is a suborbital craft, and yes, the Orion also had an unmanned test flight as the first government-commissioned craft since the space shuttle) will launch from Kennedy Space Center in the United States in the early morning hours of Saturday, the 2nd of March. Continue Reading

When SpaceX launches the Nusantara Satu (PSN-6) mission from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida this Thursday, it will mark the first East Coast launch of a Falcon 9 this year.

That’s because the Crew Dragon (yes, that same ship we want Elon Musk and company to name Serenity after Joss Whedon’s fictional Firefly-class transport ship) was supposed to have launched from the Space Coast back in mid-January for its unmanned demo flight (DM-1). That mission has now slipped to March 2 though, so in the meantime SpaceX will send the Indonesian communications satellite Nusantara Satu (PSN-6) into a Geostationary Transfer Orbit on February 21, after which the first stage of the Falcon 9 will land aboard the drone ship Of Course I Still Love You.

Of particular interest is the secondary payload on this mission– the Beresheet lunar lander, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries and a nonprofit company called SpaceIL. Once deployed, this privately-funded lander will embark on Israel’s first lunar mission. If it is successful, Israel will join the US, Russia and China in the very exclusive club of nations that have landed spacecraft on the surface of the Moon. The lander will carry a payload that includes the prayer of “Tefilat Haderech,” the Bible, an Israeli flag, the Israeli national anthem, pictures drawn by children and a photo honoring Israel’s first astronaut Ilan Ramon, who died aboard Space Shuttle Columbia in 2006.

Liftoff of the Nusantara Satu (PSN-6) mission is scheduled for 8:45PM EST (1:45 UTC) on February 21. Those who want to watch the launch live (and night launches surely are a sight to behold) can tune in to SpaceX’s webcast approximately 20 minutes before liftoff at spacex.com and on the company’s YouTube channel.

In February of last year, Titan Books announced it would be publishing three new Firefly novels that would be set in the canon of Joss Whedon’s original television series, with Whedon himself serving as the consulting editor. The first of those books, Firefly: Big Damn Hero, was released in November of 2018, just in time for the holiday shopping season. The book was written by James Lovegrove, best known for his Age of Odin series and several Sherlock Holmes books, using an original story concept by Nancy Holder, who is well known to fans of Joss Whedon for her many original Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel tie-in novels. (When the books were first announced, Holder had originally been announced as the book’s author, but apparently somewhere along the line Lovegrove was assigned the task of writing the novel using Holder’s original concept.)

With two more Firefly novels scheduled to be released by Titan in 2019, you may be wondering if this first volume will pass muster with Browncoats throughout the ‘verse. Well, if you conjure you might like a fairly straightforward review of the first novel that avoids any spoilers that might damage your calm, this Browncoat is more than happy to oblige, so read on.